SERVICE AT THE GRAVE.

Any part or parts of the following may be omitted, at discretion; and if there shall not have been a Funeral Service elsewhere, any sections of the preceding may be inserted in this formula.

Psalm cii, ciii. Job i.

S for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it—and it is gone,—and the place thereof shall know it no more....The LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away: Blessed be the name of the LORD.

My days are like a shadow that declineth, and I am withered like grass: But Thou, O LORD, shalt endure for ever, and Thy remembrance unto all generations. ¶ And John xi. 25 may be added.

I AM the Resurrection and the Life, saith the Redeemer: He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and he that liveth, and believeth in me, shall never die.

¶ When the body has been laid in the earth:

MAN, that is born of a woman, is of few days, and

full of misery. He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.

In the midst of life we are in death. Of whom may we seek for succor, but of Thee, O LORD?

Thou knowest our frame, Thou rememberest that we are dust. Take us not away in the midst of our days, but spare us, O LORD. Yet, O GOD most holy, O living and loving Father, deliver us not into the bitter bondage of the fear of death.

Thou knowest, LORD, the secrets of our hearts: Shut not Thy merciful ears to our prayer. O GOD most mighty, O holy and merciful Saviour, Thou most worthy Judge eternal, suffer us not, at our last hour, for any ills of life, for any pains of death, to fall away from our confidence in Thee.

¶ Earth cast on the body *.

FORASMUCH as the spirit, created in the image of

GOD, hath returned unto Him who gave it, we therefore commit the body to the ground,—earth to earth,* -ashes to ashes,*—dust to dust,*— believing in that change from the earthy to the heavenly which is the resurrection of the life to come, even deliverance from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of GOD.

Isaiah xl. 6, 8.

THE voice said, CRY. And he said, What shall I ery?

All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field....The grass withereth, the flower fadeth; but the word of our GoD shall stand for ever.*

Or Revelation xiv. 13.

I HEARD a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write: Blessed are the dead who die in the LORD from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors, and their works do follow them. **

¶ Benediction, Hebrews xiii. 20, 21.

Now the GoD of Peace, who brought again from the

dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant make you perfect in every good work to do His will, working in you that which is well-pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ,-to whom be glory for ever. Amen.

¶ May follow *.

FATHER ALMIGHTY, whose days are without end,

and whose mercies cannot be numbered: From the borders of the grave we cry unto Thee: out of dust and ashes we call upon Thy holy name.

Our days upon the earth are determined: Thou hast appointed our bounds that we cannot pass.

Thy faithfulness is above the clouds, and our pilgrimage is in shadow; yet would we hold by Thy loving hand. Graciously lead and sustain us, lest we

LORD most merciful, prepare us for the upward journey, and bring us at last into that higher life, in which darkness and death shall be unknown, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. May follow**.

VER-LIVING GOD, with whom the righteous are

EVER

in everlasting remembrance: We give Thee hearty thanks for the good examples of all those Thy servants, who, having pursued their course with diligence and finished it with joy, have laid down the burden of the flesh, and entered into Thy heavenly rest.

May their mantle continue in the midst of us, O LORD; and grant, we beseech Thee, that our own labors may be kept in grateful recollection, when the places which now know us shall know us no more.

In the Burial of the Dead at Sea: "We therefore commit the body to the deep-believing in," &c.

Dedication of a Cemetery.

The introductory in the Order for the Burial of the Dead, including one or more of the Scripture Lessons, (the first half of the prayer being omitted,) may be followed by a Hymn. At the places indicated by a star, let earth be cast upon the ground.

CHRIST

HRISTIAN FRIENDS: As Abraham bought the field of Ephron, with its adornment of trees and the cave of Machpelah, that he might make a burialplace for his dead, so have you set apart these grounds, as the spot in which the dust of your kindred, and your own, shall return to the earth as it was.

Not as a desert waste shall it ever be suffered to lie open, nor become like the garden of the slothful, overgrown with weeds and with walls broken down; but the winds of heaven that pass over it in the season of bloom, shall be laden with fragrance,—and in the win

ter-time, they shall sigh the memory of the departed through the branches of the evergreens.

Not as implying holiness in any thing material, nor as imparting sanctity by a ceremonial, are we about to dedicate this place of burial. All that shall be brought hither will be of the earth, earthy; yet even the body, in its silence and dust, may claim peculiar respect as having been the tabernacle of a spirit that shall never die.

The reve

It is not superstition, but religion, which subdues us into the stillness of awe in the presence of death, and impels us reverently to regard the insensible form, not because of what it is, but of what it was. rential sentiment is passed over to the earth to which it is returned, and the burial-place thus becomes invested with the solemnity of holy ground.

WHEN, therefore, the light and life of infancy or childhood, shall fade away into the morning radiance of the spiritual sun, hither shall you come, to commit the body to its serene repose-sorrowing that earth has one mortal less, yet rejoicing that heaven has one angel more. The silver cord hath been loosed:

Earth to earth*-ashes to ashes*-dust to dust.*

WHEN youth, or early manhood or womanhood, shall perish in the promise or joy of usefulness, there will be sore lamentation at the springs of social life; and the wail will here be renewed, when the stricken form is laid in the pulseless heart of our common mother. The pitcher hath been broken at the fountain:

Earth to earth*-ashes to ashes*-dust to dust.*

WHEN the dial shall be darkened at meridian, because the maturity of life has passed away into the

this shadowy silence with its mournful chords, and the heart-aching of sympathy shall respond to the heartbreaking of woe. The golden bowl hath been broken: Earth to earth*-ashes to ashes*-dust to dust.*

WHEN the weary pilgrim of many years, stepping out of the solemn procession of life, shall have put off his sandals, and laid aside his staff, and been gathered into the promised rest, hither shall you bring all that was mortal, and reverently consign it to the house appointed for all the living. The wheel hath been broken at the cistern:

Earth to earth*-ashes to ashes*-dust to dust.*

THUS do we dedicate and devote these grounds to the purpose of burial. Let no unseemly mirth invade this sanctuary of the dead, nor let such as come hither to weep, or who shall remember this place of graves, abandon themselves to hopeless sorrow.

In the vision of Christian faith, time is that section of eternity with which we have to do in the flesh, and immortality is but the continuous life, when time shall be no more. There is no death to one who has triumphed over it by the power of a living trust in God, for death is only in the darkness which comes forth of the tomb, and gathers around the hidden path into the life to come. We are pilgrims and strangers in the earth: our citizenship is in the invisible and eternal Presence.

We see not the value of this revelation, or regard it not, when the sky is cloudless, and the joy of the heart is looking out of undimmed eyes; but when the heavens are robed in gloom, and the soul is bowed in bereavement, a beam of light breaks through a rift in the cloud, and the mourner looks up, and is glad, because through tears he beholds the rainbow of hope spanning